For 400 years, Taiwanese have been subject to foreign colonizers -- first the Dutch and Spanish, then the Manchu Empire, then the Japanese empire and finally the "Republic of China" KMT Chinese Nationalist Regime of Chiang Kai-shek and his son. In particular the last 100 years of first Japanese then KMT rule were brutal in attempted obliteration of Taiwan's Identity. Herein is chronicled the fight for its recovery.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

"And this is where the root of the Taiwan and China antagonism lies. While China and the CCP continues to march down the road of national unity, ethnic sameness, and ever-invasive claims to rule over their “historical territories,” there appears to be an inexorable shift within Taiwan’s society that continues to pull the population as a whole towards a lasting and permanent identity separate from one that is Chinese-centric, regardless of the pleas coming from the People’s Republic. For as America did in its infancy, Taiwan is becoming confident and finding its voice. Perhaps one day in the near future, there could even be a family in Ohio that hosts a student from Taiwan, and that student will say without reservation, “I am Taiwanese”. Period. And all the controversy and debate surrounding Taiwan’s ethnic and national make-up and identity can be passed somewhere else in the world where it is needed. China, maybe."

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I am an American. Just like my mother and father, I was born and raised in Northeast Ohio (and as a result have the curse of being a perpetually heart-broken Cleveland sports fan), grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons, and fighting with my brothers over who got the last of the Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. I raked leaves in the fall, and enjoyed snowball fights in the winter. I loved trading baseball cards, playing soccer and video games (I’m still convinced that blowing into the game cartridges made them work), and upon reaching adolescence I adhered to the usual teenager rebellion tactics of wanting to pick out my own school clothes and pleading with my parents for an extended curfew; consistently going to battle with them with the logical ammunition argument of proclaiming “but all my friends can stay out later!” I lived what one could call a typical middle-class American upbringing, and have never questioned my own nationality. Why would I? Nobody else ever has.

My ethnicity, like many Americans however, cannot be hammered down into a simple definition. Years ago, with the help of a grandmother from my father’s side, and a grandfather and great grandmother on my mother’s side, I attempted to retrace the development of my family lines back as far as I could. I was amazed that the further I was able to delve back into history, the more ethnically diverse my family became. I had family who owned small vineyards in Naples, Italy; others who had deep roots in Bavaria, Germany; and I also am a descendant of a long blood line which resided in a small village outside the city of Zagreb, Croatia for well over a century before some of them made the trek to the United States in the early 20th century.

If you are still reading, perhaps you are wondering a) Why this author compelled to spend two paragraphs sharing mundane details about his nationality and ethnicity and b) What does this have to do with Taiwan and China? In a word: everything.

China prefers to view Taiwan through a special prism which sees Taiwan an inherent part of China going back to “ancient times” (the same moniker used when describing Tibet, East Turkestan, the Senkaku Islands, the Paracel and Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, and any other territory that it may find appealing), as well as a place where actual “Chinese” reside. It doesn’t take much digging to find speeches from Mao all the way down to Xi that seek to appeal to a “shared Chinese identity” or a “blood is thicker than water” approach, in which China equates ethnicity with political fate.

In other words, the Chinese conception of ethnicity and nationality is one and the same. To me, one’s nationality is the legal relationship between a person and a state, whereas a person’s ethnicity is an identity with or membership in a specific racial, national, or cultural group, and observance of said group’s customs, beliefs, and language.

Of course, neither nationality nor ethnicity is created in a vacuum—both are cultivated and defined by external factors that over the course of time help create them. And both hold levels of meaning and importance to people that, without exception, will change over time. In the case of China, the rulers have done much to cultivate and define nationality and ethnicity within their borders to their advantage.Any archaeologist or ethnographer could easily dispel the myth that China is “the world’s oldest continuous civilization.”

In its latest iteration, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has since 1949 sought to clobber together a single all-encompassing definition of being “Chinese,” confusing ethnic and national identities into something that could be liberally applied in order to fulfill its social and political objectives. Since its ascension to power, the CCP has recognized 55 ethnic minority groups within its borders in addition to the overwhelming Han ethnicity, whose numbers comprise about 90-92% of its total population. While the government acknowledges these groups as ethnic minorities, it places a far greater importance on the concept of a ‘harmonious society’ in which all citizens are expected to label themselves “Chinese” before any other identity.

While there is nothing unusual about expecting citizens to buy into a national identity, the government of the People’s Republic often takes liberties as to what it believes “Chinese” should be—it’s not just a national identity that centers around the people’s ownership of the state (the people don’t own the state), but an ethnic identity that centers around ethnic groups coming together under the assimilation by the Han majority.

Regardless of the fact that areas within China’s current borders have been conquered and ruled by Mongols, Manchu, Turks, Koreans, Russians, Kazaks, and the Naxi, among other ethnic groups, the CCP has often placed a premium on the here and now: If these ethnic groups reside within our borders now, then they are ‘Chinese’ in a national sense of the word.

Taking it a step further, the CCP often uses the historical borders of such groups when making territorial claims, often attempting to make what I consider outlandish links over the course of history. One example of this is with China’s current border dispute with the tiny Kingdom of Bhutan. Throughout the 1970s, China claimed that since the people of Bhutan were ethnically related to Tibetans (the Bhutanese are believed to have settled into what is now Bhutan in the 7th or 8th century) that

“Bhutanese, Sikkimese and Ladakhis form a united family in Tibet. They have always been subject to Tibet and to the great motherland of China. They must once again be united and taught the communist doctrine.”

Huh?

For those keeping score:

Bhutanese, Sikkimese, and Ladakhis all are ethnically Tibetan +
Tibet is now a part of the People’s Republic of China =
_______________________________________________
All of these ethnicities are really “Chinese” and there their land is Chinese territory.

Confused yet?

What’s more, being Chinese in reality means assimilation into the Han majority. Ethnic groups other than the Han are regarded as having lower social status. Otherwise, the Communist Party would not be incentivizing marriages that involve female brides of ethnic minority backgrounds to wed ethnic Han males by offering vacations, prizes, and monetary gifts, and yes, special reproductive rights to the new couples under the guise of ‘ethnic unity’—unions that have become increasingly common in the “Self-Autonomous Regions” of Tibet and Xinjiang (both with ethnic minority populations that outnumber the Han). There would also be far fewer cases of social unrest in Xinjiang, a province that has the highest rate of GDP growth outside the rich coastal Provinces of the Southeast—if the Uyghur majority were able to share in the economic spoils.

Which brings us to Taiwan—A place and a people that seldom fit neatly into any definition. It is not news that China claims sovereignty over Taiwan. It does so by claiming that the Republic of China government in Taiwan is a renegade holdover from the Chinese Civil War from 1945 to 1949, but it further claims that the people living in Taiwan are “Chinese”—and as we have seen earlier, that means the territory belongs to China too. But how do the Taiwanese people see their own national and ethnic identities?

When it comes to the issue of ethnic identity in Taiwan, it’s a challenging enough topic for those with at least some familiarity of Taiwan and its history, but for those who lack such acumen, it can be a never-ending source of confusion and frustration. This author can share two such experiences that highlight this point.

During my junior year of high school, our family hosted an exchange student over the summer from Taiwan. While I had an interest about China and Japan that went back as far as I could remember, Taiwan was never on my radar. Over the course of the summer, I would probe our guest with questions about nearly everything imaginable:

“What’s the red stamp on your I.D. mean?”

“It says if you have drug, the police can kill you.” (He always laughed when saying this but never did say if he was joking)”

“What does your father do in Taiwan?”

“He is a businessman.”

“Why do you say that you are Chinese?”

“I am Chinese.”

“But you live in Taiwan. So wouldn’t that make you Taiwanese?”

“No, we live in Taiwan, but we are Chinese.”

Needless to say this didn’t ease my lack of confusion about why he called himself Chinese. After all, my family lived in the United States, I knew where my grandparents came from in Europe, and I could say I was “Croatian, German, or Italian”, but of course it always came down to me saying I was an American. The idea that someone could be born in a country, yet identify their ethnicity and nationality something else was really head-scratching for me at the time.

The other example took place years later, a few days following my initial arrival in Taiwan in 2008. While feeling that I had at least a better than average grasp on “the basics” of Taiwan before leaving the United States, all it took was a random glance into a Lonely Planet guidebook that was published in the early 90s that made me feel like I was back into the same conversation with my family’s guest from Taiwan.

When speaking to people in Taiwan, do not call them “Taiwanese”. You will find that most people prefer to be identified as “Chinese”. The issue remains a sensitive topic among many people in Taiwan.

What? Why?

Over the course of the next three years, I sometimes posed the question, “Do you consider yourselves Chinese or Taiwanese?” And of course I received answers that in most cases did not fit neatly into a single category. “Taiwanese”, “Chinese”, “I speak Chinese but I consider myself Taiwanese”, “The only people who are really Taiwanese are the aborigines”, “My family is Chinese but I am Taiwanese”, “I’m Chinese and Taiwanese”.

It wasn’t until towards the end of my time living in Taiwan did it occur to me that there wasn’t going to be a simple answer. Taiwanese society was only twenty some years removed from a 46 year-long martial law period during which anything other than Chinese identity was oppressed. Prior to that there were 50 years of Japanese colonial rule. A Taiwanese identity, while young and fragile, was in the process of evolving and shaping itself into something tangible. While many people in Taiwan considered themselves ethnically Chinese, a half century of separation between China and Taiwan allowed for nearly every facet of both societies to become altered from each other due to the different experiences felt by both sides. Perhaps the most sagacious explanation of what ‘Taiwanese’ meant in their eyes came from Michael Fonte, the Democratic Progressive Party Liaison in Washington D.C. described it to me as: “Something that while having aspects and traits of Chinese culture within it, is also molded and shaped by Taiwan’s experiences with its own indigenous cultures, as well being influenced by Japanese, Western, South Asian, and Polynesian experiences as well—All rolled up into a new culture that is unique to Taiwan.”

One uses bó͘, "certain; particular," to particularize a mountain without specifically naming which one. Notice that in English the word "certain" has a broader range of meanings whereas Taiwanese uses distinct words.

• Unfortunately, because the R.O.C. government-in-exile suppresses the use of Taiwanese and other non-Mandarin languages in public schools in Taiwan, there is not much opportunity to learn the vocabulary of the non-Mandarin languages associated with an academic setting. Furthermore, few essay or papers in these languages have ever been written by students. The normal editing processes are never experienced. The following Taiwanese expressions describe editing practices.

* Underline this sentence = "kā chit kú ê ē-bīn oē sûn"

oē = draw ; sûn = line ; ē-bīn = underneath

[Notice the homonym: the noun oē 話 in "kú-oē" meaning speech/word and the verb oē 畫 meaning draw/sketch. These two homonyms are obviously different in their Han characters. But actually in the romanization, one has very little trouble differentiating them because of their distinct parts of speech and the noun often being associated in a compound word and the verb often being associated with an object -- e.g. kú-oē "sentence" vs. oē tô͘ "draw a picture" ]

Kho͘ is a verb that means "to circle" ; kho͘-á is the noun that means "a circle" -- just as in English one can say: "Circle this sentence." or "Circle a circle around this sentence." Or to get more fancy you could translate it as "Circumscribe a circle..."

* If the word or phrase is really poorly written, sometimes you should just strike it out. Taiwanese is quite vivid in the way to say that. Jack-the-Ripper fashion, literally, you say "kill/murder/slash that sentence!" = "Kā hit kú-oē thâi-tiāu." or "murder that word..." = "Kā hit jī thâi-tiāu." This word "thâi," meaning kill/murder/slash w/knife, is also what someone who is good at bargaining can do: Kā i thâi kè-siàu. "Cut/kill the price."

• Poa̍h-kiáu 賭博 means "gambling." In the fall of 2009 there was a referendum being held in Phêⁿ-ô͘ (Penghu or the Pescadores) on whether or not to allow gambling casinos ( kiáu-keng ). Unfortunately, gambling profits are often controlled by organized crime ( o͘-siā-hōe ) and corrupt government officials ( tham-ù ê chèng-hú ). Where you find casinos you also find drugs ( to̍k-phín ), violence ( po̍k-le̍k ), sexual crimes ( sek-chêng ), and human trafficking ( jîn-kháu ê bé-bē) where the victims are controlled with drugs ( iōng to̍k-phín khòng-chè in ). A few people or mafia organizations can make huge profits off gambling, but for most residents, there is no benefit ( hó-chhù ) but rather an accumulation of societal problems -- particularly addiction in its various forms.

· Taiwanese still has the saying with variations that basically translate as "An Austronesian Grandmother and a Hoklo Grandfather" --- For example,

"Ū tn̂g soaⁿ-kong, bô Tn̂g-soaⁿ-má." -- "Have a Han grandfather, but no Han grandmother..." With that intermarriage of Austronesian and Han that makes up today's Taiwanese people, I thought it would be interesting to share some marriage and kinship related terms:

Chheⁿ-ḿ 生姆 or originally written 青姆 means a son or daughter's mother-in-law. Mandarin uses a different word: 親家母

This expression "teh ùn tāu-iû" is used in social circumstances to describe very short visits. If someone "drops by" and then leaves, it is like dipping food in soy sauce.

This expression is also very appropriate to describe the attitude of the Chinese Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek's regime. They treated Taiwan as a temporary place from which they would fight back to China. They spoke of winning back China within three years after fleeing as refugees to Taiwan in 1949. So you can notice today that all the beautiful architecture is mainly from the Japanese era (pre-1945). The KMT regime put up many hasty structures, allowed squatter shack communities of former soldiers to take over many of the parks in the cities, and generally allow industry to heavily pollute the environment and degrade the landscape because they thought of Taiwan mainly as a resource to be exploited before heading back to China.

These two words are what the colonialist KMT Chinese Nationalist Party and the Japanese empire before them in Taiwan did in an attempt to destroy Taiwan's native languages.

• "developed baby fat from nursing" hàng-leng

When a nursing infant grows well with lots of fat rolls, one does not call the infant the common words for "fat" such as pûi-ê or tōa-kho͘-ê. Taiwanese has this special word hàng-leng for "baby fat." If you say that about a baby, the mother will be very delighted to receive the complement. Incidentally, the word tōa-kho͘ literally means "large circumference" and kho͘ specifically refers to the metal bands that circle around the old wooden buckets and hold the pieces of wood together. (Or think of whiskey barrels.)

In Taiwan, you can still sometimes bargain for things you buy. But unlike Thailand, it is usually pretty standardized so that people are not automatically marking up the price 400 percent because you are a foreigner. So even if you do not bargain, you can get a decent price in Taiwan.